Jim Ray Brook — 1984 Totems

One night, I got home later than usual. It was one of those perfect warm fall evenings that happen more often in memory than in reality. There was no moon but Sirius, the Wolf Star, shone out bright as day. It made me think of my tiny cell. It filled me with a sweet sadness, that light from a distant past. I don’t know why, sometimes hard times to live through can be good to remember. Something had happened to me in prison that could never unhappen. Nor did I want it to. I would not want to live those days again, but they taught me things that I might never otherwise have learned.